Richard K. Lodge: Education is training for life

Two dozen years after the last major education reform initiative in Massachusetts and we're still trying to get it right.

Richard K. Lodge

Two dozen years after the last major education reform initiative in Massachusetts and we're still trying to get it right.

Dana Mohler-Faria, Gov. Deval Patrick's new education adviser and current president of Bridgewater State College, was in town earlier this week to talk about The Readiness Project, a massive effort at ed reform in the Bay State which should see some solid recommendations by this summer.

Mohler-Faria talked to the Daily News editorial board about the project. In the discussion, he cited his own experience at Bridgewater State to back up widespread assertions that many students today are graduating from Massachusetts high schools unprepared for college.

Mohler-Faria lamented the amount of time, money and effort put toward "remediation" for incoming students at Bridgewater State - and, by extension, all state colleges in Massachusetts. That remediation is needed because many students don't have the skills to understand and succeed at college-level work.

Coincidentally, a report released this week by a group called Common Core found that large numbers of American teenagers who were surveyed by the group on basic history and literature questions gave the wrong answers. Common Core said its research results showed quite a few teenagers live in "stunning ignorance" of American history and literature.

When was the Civil War fought? When did Columbus sail to the New World? If you automatically turn this page upside down expecting to find the answers, you probably would have flunked Common Core's multiple choice survey.

Common Core blames, in part, President Bush's No Child Left Behind law for forcing schools to narrow curricula to focus on reading and math, leaving little time to study history, civics or literature. Mohler-Faria pointed to the MCAS tests and Massachusetts' heavy focus on test results as a similar cause behind the narrowing of students' understanding of a larger world.

Yes, they can divide fractions and summarize the point of a literary passage after reading it. But the experts - whether in Washington or Boston - are seeing that drive to pass the tests as producing students who are ill-equipped to take the next step.

Many charter schools in Massachusetts are successfully teaching students and producing well-rounded graduates with the basic skills and problem-solving ability to jump right into college work. Many regular public schools that have adopted some of the creative integration of topics and ways to encourage students to think through and discuss academic questions or projects also are graduating students with solid knowledge and critical-thinking skills.

Still, there are those tests, the ones many academics complain they have to "teach to," taking time away from other education that would help shape more well-rounded students.

Mohler-Faria said the Patrick administration and The Readiness Project are trying to look 10 to 20 years down the road. What skills will Bay State students need to not only succeed in higher education, but to be ready and qualified for jobs that companies in Massachusetts need done?

The Education Reform Act of 1993 "made some significant changes, but they were limited," Mohler-Faria said. The Readiness Project report is expected to recommend a heavy investment in pre-K and early childhood education, an increase in Chapter 70 local aid funding to help cities and towns pay for the increased cost of education, and funding for the whole spectrum of grades, pre-K through grade 12.

It's a grand plan and one that will be expensive and require considerable buy-in from many interest groups. That sounds like every other grand plan that has come out of a major study group, of course. But this one really will deserve our attention. The evidence that too many Massachusetts teenagers are unprepared for entry level college courses can be found from Boston to the Berkshires. Companies in MetroWest often struggle to find local applicants for the many jobs that demand technical and math skills and the ability to work through challenges as part of a team.

It's becoming far too common that we hear the latest survey that finds Americans who can't locate Texas on a map or who think "To Kill A Mockingbird" is a bird-hunting primer rather than a great literary and moral tale.

Many people won't agree on how to broaden and enrich our children's education in Massachusetts, but we should agree that we're doing wrong by them if we don't do everything we can to make sure they're getting the best education and the best training for life in the workforce that we can give them.

Mohler-Faria said it earlier this week: "It's about what our kids need and how do we get it right?"

Richard Lodge is editor of the Daily News and writes an occasional column, published on Friday. His e-mail is rlodge@cnc.com

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